A comparison of models fos dispersion of atmospheric contaminants

In this work a stack emission in actual atmospheric conditions was modeled with AERMOD, HPDM, PCCOSYMA and HYSPLIT codes. The first two have Gaussian stationary plume models and they were developed to calculate environmental impact produced by chemical contaminants. PCCOSYMA has a Gaussian-type segmented plume model, developed for assessing radiological impact of nuclear accidents. HYSPLIT has a hybrid code that uses a Lagrangian reference system to describe the transport of a puff mass center and an Eulerian system to describe the dispersion within the puff. The emission was fixed in 0.3 g.s-1, 284 K and 0 m.s-1, that is in equilibrium with the environment, in order to compare the different codes results. Flat terrain with fixed 0.1 m surface rough was considered. Meteorological and topographic data used were obtained from runs of the prognostic code RAMS, provided by NOAA. The main contribution of this work is to provide recommendations about the validity range of each code depending on the model used. For Gaussian models the distance in which the atmospheric condition can be considered homogeneous determines the validity range. On the other hand the validity range of HYSPLIT model is determined by the availability of the meteorological data spatial extension. There was a significant difference between the dispersion parameters used by the Gaussian codes. (author)